SANTA ANA : Ward Map Opposed by Latino Activists

Claiming that new ward boundaries drawn up by city officials violate the federal Voting Rights Act, Latino activists this week urged City Council members to discard the plan and instead adopt one that increases the number of Latinos in three of the city’s six wards.

During Monday’s first public hearing on the new ward boundaries, which were redrawn as required by law to reflect population changes in the 1990 Census, members of the Orange County Hispanic Committee for Fair Elections said the city’s plan submerges Latino voting blocs into wards dominated by whites in at least four neighborhoods.

The plan, they argued, violates a federal law that requires the voting strength of minorities to remain on a par with that of whites. But City Atty. Edward J. Cooper told the council that the city’s plan is not illegal.

“We have litigated this before and convinced the court once before that there is no discrimination in the voting in the city of Santa Ana,” Cooper told the council. “We have always had minority representation on this City Council.”

The redrawing of the ward boundaries is particularly significant this year because of the dramatic increase in the Latino population, which reached 65% of the total population in the 1990 Census--a 111% increase from 1980.

In the map drawn up by the city, Latinos make up a majority of the population in five of the six wards. The exception is Ward 3, generally covering the more affluent section of the city north of 17th Street, where Latinos make up 43.3% of the residents.

The alternative map presented by the Orange County Hispanic Committee for Fair Elections includes a Latino majority in only four of the six wards, but increases the number of Latinos in three wards. The goal, they said, is to consolidate minority voting blocs so that they can influence the election of candidates who will reflect their concerns.

Those candidates, coalition members said, may not necessarily be Latino.

“The person can be green, blue, red, white, whatever color that individual is,” said coalition member Arturo Montez, citing Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) as an example of a white officeholder who is heavily supported in minority communities. “We want to elect that individual based on merit and performance.”

But Mayor Daniel H. Young pointed to the zigzagging lines in the committee’s plan and wondered whether the city should protect minority voting strength at the expense of “communities of like interest.”

Councilman Richards L. Norton, stating what he believed to be the underlying concerns of citizens, said: “There’s a Hispanic faction in this town that says, ‘We are 70% Hispanic here, we ought to run this town.’ And there’s an Anglo faction in this town that says, ‘We have been around longer so we should run this town. We vote more.’ ”

The reshaping of the ward lines could set the stage for a dramatic turnover on the council. Three of the six ward representatives--John Acosta, Daniel E. Griset and Patricia A. McGuigan--will leave their ward seats because of the city’s term limit law, and a fourth seat occupied by Mayor Pro Tem Miguel A. Pulido Jr. will be open in 1994.

The first council vote to adopt a new ward map is set for Feb. 18.